The paper quoted an unnamed member of the March 14 alliance, who
claimed that "relations between the Hezbollah and the US are developing
positively."
March 14 is an alliance of Lebanese political factions opposed to the influence of Hezbollah and its Syrian and Iranian patrons.
As further proof of a budding, if as-yet unofficial diplomatic
relationship between the US and the Shia terrorist group, the unnamed MP
pointed out that during his last public address Hezbollah leader Hassan
Nasrallah notably neglected to criticize US foreign policy in Lebanon
and the wider Middle East.
The unnamed source went on to site an alleged statement by the
US's Ambassador to Lebanon David Hale, who he said informed
several Lebanese leaders that "a cabinet can not be formed without
Hezbollah participation."
If true, the rapprochement marks a continuing shift in US foreign
policy towards Iran and its regional allies, and will do little to
assuage the growing feelings of abandonment by America's traditional
allies in the region - in particular the Arab Gulf States and Israel.
It would also be a remarkable shift in relations given Hezbollah's
legacy of bloody attacks against US personnel in the region, including
the infamous October 1983 truck bombing of a multinational forces
barracks in the Lebanese capital which killed 241 American soldiers and
wounded scores more.
Aren't you glad that the American people gave Hussein Obama four more years to destroy the United States' system of alliances? What could go wrong?
Citing a Kuwaiti newspaper report, Lebanese blog Ya Libnan reports that premier designate Najib Mikati is on the verge of quitting due to his inability to form a government.
Hezbollah is reportedly creating obstacles for Mikati for insisting on including in the cabinet Faisal Karami , son of former PM Omar Karami as the representative of the Sunnis.
Hezbollah is also reportedly hiding behind MP Michel Aoun’s renewed demand for the ministry of Interior even though it was agreed earlier in March that the interior ministry will go to the centrist bloc of President Suleiman, Mikati and MP Walid Jumblatt.
President Suleiman is reportedly fully aware of Aoun’s intentions and for this reason he will not allow Aoun to control the ministry of interior under any circumstances. After all, one analyst told Ya Libnan last month : “Awarding the ministry of interior to Aoun will put the whole internal security of Lebanon under Hezbollah’s direct control. Such a situation will be extremely dangerous for Lebanon and will turn Lebanon into another Gaza or Somalia .”
Does Hezbullah have an interest in anarchy? Perhaps. It makes it much easier to take the country to war if Iran and Syria tell them to do that.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the United States stopped sending weapons to Lebanon in January.
However, the decision was not publicized in order to ensure a smooth transition to a new Lebanese government following the collapse of former Prime Minister Sa'ad Hariri's Western-backed administration.
American deliveries of non-lethal equipment have continued, as has military training for the Lebanese Army.
In 2010, the U.S. granted at least $18 million in ordnance to Lebanon, according to the report.
Hizbullah-backed Nagib Mikati was appointed as the new prime minister-designate in January with a parliamentary majority secured, according to March 14 Alliance rivals, by the terrorists' weapons.
Change. The Obama administration actually did the right thing.
Hezbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah may not have as much maneuvering room as he thinks to go to war with Israel. Beirut Daily Star columnist Michael Young warns that Nasrallah must watch his flank.
If Hezbollah and its echo chambers need to warn even their allies to stay on board politically; if the party is furious with the double language of the Lebanese political class, whose members will readily spill the beans even to the Americans, then that does not say much about Hezbollah’s capacity to unite Lebanon behind its resistance. In fact, it tends to confirm something that we always suspected: the party has managed to enforce a consensus solely through intimidation.
This poses potential problems for Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary general. His implicit contract with Iran is that his party be prepared to protect and advance Tehran’s interests in the Levant, to the extent that Hezbollah would retaliate against Israel if the Israelis were to bombard Iranian nuclear facilities. But for such a project to be effective, for Hezbollah to go to war with confidence that its countrymen are not working behind its back against its interests, the party would have to enjoy widespread Lebanese backing.
The blunt reality is that it doesn’t. Hezbollah long ago lost the Sunni community. The Druze will follow Jumblatt, but not if that means they must pay a heavy price on behalf of Hezbollah in a war against Israel that harms the community in the mountains and in the West Bekaa and Hasbaya. As for the Christians, Khazen and Kanaan reflected far more accurately the mood in the community than Bassil; there is no Christian enthusiasm, and that includes among Aoun’s followers, for seeing Lebanon suffer for a Hezbollah project.
That reluctance would be shared by many in the Shia community who yet express their fondness for Hezbollah. Nasrallah’s rash support for the Shia opposition in Bahrain last week has provoked a harsh backlash from the kingdom. We can expect many more Shia in the Gulf to soon see their residency permits or visas revoked and their financial interests and investments ruined. Add to this mix the communal anger if Shia are made to endure another devastating war with Israel in the South, and we can appreciate that Nasrallah’s margin of maneuver is not as wide as he and his partisans claim.
It sounds like a strong Israeli response to a Hezbullah attack would result in an erosion of Nasrallah's domestic support. Maybe that will make him think twice about attacking us. Especially after the Special Tribunal indictments come out.
With Saad Hariri and the March 14 coalition now clearly on the outside of the next Lebanese government, they are finally raising an issue that should - in a just world - have been raised a long time ago: Hezbullah's weapons.
The decision of Saad Hariri and March 14 to make an issue of Hezbollah’s arms is overdue. Lebanon’s inability to consolidate its shaky social contract, to address political reform, to reinforce the authority of the state, and to fortify its deficient sovereignty are all consequences of the lack of a national consensus, deriving from the untenable relationship between a state and an armed group militarily more powerful than the state that has used its arms, or compulsively threatens to do so, in order to protect itself and its autonomy from that state. Until this matter is resolved, Lebanon will function at two speeds – that of Hezbollah and its allies, and that of everyone else.
However, does March 14 have what it takes to prevail? Not so long ago, Saad Hariri was defending what he described as the arms of the resistance. Three governments led by the former majority crafted convoluted policy statements to sanction Hezbollah’s retention of its substantial military arsenal. March 14 is correct in saying that Hezbollah has directed its weapons against other Lebanese, and that its deployment of men dressed in black in Beirut’s streets last January, after finalization of the draft indictment at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, was a threat to repeat that. But then March 14 went ahead and participated in the parliamentary consultations that gave Hezbollah the prime minister it and Syria wanted, allowing the party to claim that it had worked through constitutional channels.
That does not mean that March 14 is mistaken in focusing on weapons, but unfortunately the twists and turns the coalition has navigated to reach this conclusion indicate, rightly or wrongly, that it is relying to some measure on political improvisation. Worse, Hariri must respond more persuasively to the charge that he shifted gears on Hezbollah’s guns because he was not returned as prime minister. Unless he does so, March 14 could find itself on the defensive in advancing a very risky agenda to push for Hezbollah’s disarmament.
The columnist, the Daily Star's Michael Young, goes on to argue that March 14 should make a tradeoff, offering greater Shiite participation in government along the lines of the Taif accords in exchange for Hezbullah giving up its weapons. (For those of you who are not familiar with how Lebanon works, each of the major positions in its government must be filled by a member of a designated ethnic group. The rules were set a long time ago, and there has been a significant population shift toward the Shiites that has never been taken into account).
Young hints at what the likely denouement of such a tradeoff would be, although he clearly wishes it weren't so. The result of such a shift would most likely lead to Hezbullah swatting away the Lebanese Armed Forces like an annoying fly and carrying out a coup d'etat that would make the bloodbath in Libya look like child's play.
Hariri and March 14 won't be party to an effort to disband Special Tribunal
Caretaker Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri and his March 14 coalition say they won't be part of a coalition government with the Hezbullah-led March 8 coalition because the latter seeks to disband the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon is investigating the murder of Hariri's father Rafik by a truck bomb in 2005. The murder was likely carried out by Hezbullah on orders from Syria.
Caretaker Premier Saad Hariri justified the March 14 alliance’s refusal to be part of Najib Mikati’s government by stressing that the Hezbollah-backed Cabinet aims at “eliminating” the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
March 14 “saw that it is in the interest of Lebanon and the Lebanese to move to a real national opposition that responds to the requirements of a democratic system,” Hariri said in the interview published Monday.
“They wanted us to become part of a government that seeks to eliminate the international tribunal from the policy statement,” Hariri told al-Mustaqbal daily about the March 8 forces.
The new opposition should “preserve the nation” against efforts to target the constitution and the Taef accord, he added.
When asked if the March 14 decision to become the new opposition was the start of a campaign for the 2013 parliamentary elections, Hariri said: “This issue is not linked to power. It is about essential things that effected public life.”
He said the next elections will be an opportunity for the Lebanese “to salvage the democratic system” from Hizbullah’s arms.
Outgoing Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced on Monday that he will form an opposition rather than joining a government led by Hezbullah.
His successor, Hezbollah-backed Sunni billionaire Najib Mikati, is now negotiating to form a cabinet and had called on Mr. Hariri and his allies to join a unity government. Mr. Hariri's move secures Hezbollah's place as the dominant political force in the next Lebanese government.
With the announcement, in an impassioned, confrontational speech to thousands of supporters, the Sunni leader, who until last month had to manage a range of interests in his own unity government, set the stage for heightened conflict. Mr. Hariri called for mass protests on March 14, and accused Hezbollah and its allies of "lies, betrayal and lack of loyalty."
He also reaffirmed his support for a United Nations-backed tribunal investigating the assassination of his father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, on Feb. 14, 2005. The assassination, in a car bombing, was a pivotal event in Lebanon, and led to the end of Syria's 30-year military occupation of the country.
There's something left unsaid here: With a Hezbullah dominated government, it is highly likely that the US will cut off aid to Lebanon. The stronger the Hezbullah domination, the more likely the cutoff.
March 14 (pro-Western) MP Ziad al-Qadir and former Lebanese president and current Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel both insist that only Saad Hariri can be the next Prime Minister of Lebanon.
He's no lover of Israel, but you have to feel somewhat sorry for Lebanese Prime Minister Sa'ad al-Hariri. How could he say this with a straight face?
I do not think that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had anything to do with my father's murder, Prime Minister Saad Hariri has told the British daily The Times.
Asked by The Times who he now believed killed his father, Hariri said: "I'm the Prime Minister. I do not have the luxury of speculating these days."
"I believe a relationship with a country is simply bound to the interests of two countries and not by personal issues," he added.
"The relationship (with Syria) is geographically and historically important, and I should act as a prime minister, not as Saad Hariri."
The premier said he does not believe that the blood of his slain father, ex-PM Rafik Hariri, "will or should cause strife in the country."
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
